Go SDK Reference

The Daytona Go SDK provides a powerful interface for programmatically interacting with Daytona Sandboxes. It requires Go 1.25 or later.

Installation

Install the Daytona Go SDK using go get:

go get github.com/daytona/clients/sdk-go

Getting Started

Create a Sandbox

Create a Daytona Sandbox to run your code securely in an isolated environment. The following snippet is an example “Hello World” program that runs securely inside a Daytona Sandbox.

package main

import (
  "context"
  "fmt"
  "log"

  "github.com/daytona/clients/sdk-go/pkg/daytona"
)

func main() {
  // Initialize the SDK (uses environment variables by default)
  client, err := daytona.NewClient()
  if err != nil {
    log.Fatal(err)
  }

  // Create a new sandbox
  sandbox, err := client.Create(context.Background(), nil)
  if err != nil {
    log.Fatal(err)
  }

  // Execute a command
  response, err := sandbox.Process.ExecuteCommand(context.Background(), "echo 'Hello, World!'")
  if err != nil {
    log.Fatal(err)
  }
  fmt.Println(response.Result)
}

Configuration

The Daytona SDK can be configured using environment variables or by passing options to the constructor:

package main

import (
  "github.com/daytona/clients/sdk-go/pkg/daytona"
  "github.com/daytona/clients/sdk-go/pkg/types"
)

func main() {
  // Using environment variables (DAYTONA_API_KEY, DAYTONA_API_URL, DAYTONA_TARGET)
  client, _ := daytona.NewClient()

  // Using explicit configuration
  config := &types.DaytonaConfig{
    APIKey: "YOUR_API_KEY",
    APIUrl: "https://app.daytona.io/api",
    Target: "us",
  }
  client, _ = daytona.NewClientWithConfig(config)
}

For more information on configuring the Daytona SDK, see API keys.

Real-time state updates

Starting with SDK version 0.198.0, the SDK streams sandbox state changes over a WebSocket (Socket.IO) connection by default. Sandbox lifecycle operations that wait on a state change (start, stop, pause, resize, snapshot, DeleteAndWait) complete as soon as the server pushes the new state, instead of waiting for the next polling interval.

Each Client opens a single WebSocket connection shared by all of its sandboxes. A sparse polling safety net runs alongside the event stream, so a missed event never hangs a waiting operation.

The WebSocket handshake carries source and sdkVersion query parameters, equivalent to the X-Daytona-Source and X-Daytona-SDK-Version REST headers. The SDK collects no client-side telemetry.

Polling fallback

If the WebSocket connection cannot be established, for example when a proxy, firewall, or network policy blocks it, the SDK falls back to polling automatically. Connection setup runs in the background and never returns an error, so no handling is required.

The WebSocket endpoint derives from the configured API URL, including custom base paths, so reverse proxy deployments such as https://host/prefix/api work without additional configuration.

Opt out of event streaming

Deprecated

Polling-only mode is deprecated and will be removed in a future release. Because the SDK falls back to polling automatically, opting out is only needed in environments that prohibit WebSocket connections by policy.

In polling-only mode the SDK never opens a WebSocket connection. Sandbox state is observed exclusively by polling the REST API, with the same cadence as SDK versions before event streaming.

To opt out, set the DAYTONA_USE_DEPRECATED_POLLING environment variable:

export DAYTONA_USE_DEPRECATED_POLLING=true

Or set UseDeprecatedPolling when initializing the client. The explicit configuration option always takes precedence over the environment variable; the environment variable applies only when the option is unset.

useDeprecatedPolling := true
config := &types.DaytonaConfig{
  UseDeprecatedPolling: &useDeprecatedPolling,
}
client, err := daytona.NewClientWithConfig(config)

See the DaytonaConfig reference for details.